Oxfordshire County Council

The announcement on 22 February by the Audit Commission of their most recent assessments of the performance of councils in England has been excellent news for Oxfordshire County Council. It becomes the only council in Oxfordshire to be given a four star or ‘excellent’ rating, putting it amongst the best performers in the country.

It’s also good news for Conservative-controlled councils in general and bad news for those controlled by the Liberal-Democrats.

Of those councils whose ratings were announced on 22 February almost 40% of those ranked excellent or good were Conservative-controlled whilst only 6% were Liberal-Democrat controlled.

Indeed, councils with No Overall Control (NOC) did significantly better than the Liberal-Democrats accounting for 26% of councils – only 2% behind Labour.

The same picture was replicated in the Audit Commission’s Direction of Travel scores.

Of those Improving Strongly, almost 42% were controlled by Conservatives and, as last year, none by Liberal-Democrats.

Of those Improving Well, 36% were Conservative councils and just under 7% Liberal-Democrat councils.

Commenting on the results, Cllr John Howell (Cabinet Member for Change Management) said:

“We shouldn’t be surprised that Conservative-controlled councils have done so well. Conservatives have always shown a commitment to improving service performance for the benefit of the people they represent. What these results prove is that we do it consistently well. That’s a good hallmark of what can be expected when a Conservative government is returned to Westminster at the next General Election.

“These results are, however, a disaster for the Liberal-Democrats who have always prided themselves on their ability to work local electorates. They simply are not delivering.

“You can see this in Oxfordshire. There are only two councils which are not Conservative-controlled. All the Conservative councils are rated either excellent or good whereas Vale of White Horse and Oxford City, which are run by Liberal-Democrats, are still only fair and weak respectively.”